Josephine Sophia White Griffing (December 18, 1814 – February 18, 1872) was an American reformer who campaigned against slavery and for women's rights.
By 1849, both Charles and Josephine were active members of the Western Anti-Slavery Society, and by 1851 they were traveling agents, preaching "no union with slaveholders.
[1][4] During the Civil War, Griffing acted as the western agent for the Women's Loyal National League, a feminist organization that worked to outlaw slavery in every state.
[7] Griffing became an agent for the National Freedmen's Relief Association of the District of Columbia, where she opened up two industrial schools for freedwomen in order to teach them marketable skills such as sewing.
[4] In June 1865, as reward for her work in helping to create the Freedmen's Bureau, Commissioner Oliver Otis Howard appointed Griffing the assistant to the assistant commissioner for Washington, D.C.[8] Despite Griffing's prominence in the Freedmen's Bureau, she and the male leaders of the organization often conflicted over how best to aid the freedpeople of Washington.
She worked with her government contacts to help freedpeople find jobs in the north, and sometimes travelled with them to make sure they arrived safely.
The Freedmen's Bureau worked with Griffing on this project, providing barracks in Rhode Island, offices in New York City, and fund for rent and other necessary expenses.
[6] Throughout her tenure, Griffing fought for increased aid for the freedpeople, as well as continuing her efforts at finding employment for African Americans in the north.
[4] Shortly after President Abraham Lincoln gave the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Griffing joined the Women's Loyal National League as a lecturing agent, where she helped collect thousands of signatures for a women's antislavery petition that was eventually presented to the United States Congress by Charles Sumner.
[4] The first volume of History of Woman Suffrage, published in 1881, states, “THESE VOLUMES ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO THE Memory of Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, Lucretia Mott, Harriet Martineau, Lydia Maria Child, Margaret Fuller, Sarah and Angelina Grimké, Josephine S. Griffing, Martha C. Wright, Harriot K. Hunt, M.D., Mariana W. Johnson, Alice and Phebe Carey, Ann Preston, M.D., Lydia Mott, Eliza W. Farnham, Lydia F. Fowler, M.D., Paulina Wright Davis, Whose Earnest Lives and Fearless Words, in Demanding Political Rights for Women, have been, in the Preparation of these Pages, a Constant Inspiration TO The Editors”.